Can your phone do that?

[Russ Smith]

Microsoft, in a previous ad campaign asked exactly that. Now, it's time to turn the question to Microsoft itself. Here are a few examples of what I do with my WM6.5 HD2 throughout the day. The question for Microsoft is "Can your Windows Phone 7 do that?" and if, so "How?"

On the way to work, wife texts me with a few items to pick up on the way home. I copy and paste them to a To Do item with an alarm five minutes after work ends.
Arriving at work, I find that we've got three new motherboards coming in. I enter the basic information into HanDBase. Then, I browse the web for specs and enter further data on each board, cutting and pasting the appropriate information into my database. Finally, I wirelessly print a report that puts the information into placards for each board.
At lunch, I listen to a "Book-on-tape" (actually OverDrive Media with a book downloaded from the public library). While listening, I also check movie listings for tonight. I cut-and-paste the movie information into a text to send to my wife.
Still at lunch, my pastor texts, asking for the recently-changed address of one of our church members. I pull up my Contacts, cut and paste address (and e-mail address too) and text it back, all while continuing to listen to my book.
After work at the supermarket (see item above), have an idea for a presentation I'll be giving soon. I call up TextMaker, add the idea, and also move a few things around to fit better, all while the person in front of me figures out how to use the auto-checkout.

This is actually quite typical for my day and my current phone is capable doing all of it quickly and well. Some of the most important features to accomplish it are cut-and-paste and multi-tasking; features that don't appear to be in WP7. So, Microsoft "Can your phone do that?"

[David Tucker]

It is definitely frustrating that Microsoft is going from what is really an advanced and powerful platform to one that is really very light weight in its capabilities. I don't understand how they couldn't figure out how to create a new OS that kept the power of what Pocket PC was and modernize it.:rolleyes:

[doogald]

It is definitely frustrating that Microsoft is going from what is really an advanced and powerful platform to one that is really very light weight in its capabilities. I don't understand how they couldn't figure out how to create a new OS that kept the power of what Pocket PC was and modernize it.:rolleyes:

Probably because 90% of potential owners of smartphones have absolutely no interest in doing anything that robust, find using WM6.x smartphones complicated, and really just want something that can easily integrate their messaging, including texts and social networking, voice mails, and email, while allowing decent web search and browsing and light applications, and Microsoft is betting that they will make more profit selling to customers like that than to customers like us.

[David Tucker]

I agree...however I know you're using Android like I am too. Google seems to have struck a decent balance between flexibility & power and ease of use. I don't think the two are mutually exclusive. I know A LOT of people who are moving to Android. And I don't mean my fellow techies. My mom has a myTouch. My cousin has a G1. Neither of them are remotely what I would call techy (though my mom certainly is able to use technology pretty well).

The base OS should be simple to use and unhindered by complexity, yes. But the power of the Pocket PC line of OSes and Android today is the ability to really do most anything you want. The only real limits are and were what applications were available.

[Russ Smith]

Well said David. That's really what I'm getting at. I have to confess, I haven't a clue as to what a majority of smartphone users want to do. I just know what I want to do and that, when I show what I can do to most folks, they say "I didn't know they could do that!" The iPhone has gotten amazing traction by showing people that they can do what I've been able to do for years.

I think the key to making this work is to have a very powerful core, giving developers access to that power, starting off with a good suite of basic, but highly usable tools, and allowing the user to go beyond that when/if they want.

WM6.5 was almost all of that, with a few faults in the basic functionality for basic users. So does Android. WP7 seems a major step back.

[Jason Dunn]

Something to think about: it's easier to start with something simple and add layers of functionality on top (and control the complexity) of it than it is to start with something complex and try to simplify it. That's really at the root of the whole problem - Windows Mobile is a complex, hard to use product...and all of Microsoft's efforts at attempting to simplify it haven't worked out to sell. Windows Phone 7 is a re-start, and at the start, it will be lacking features we're used to having. But if Microsoft can add features to WP7 while keeping the complexity in check, they'll have something good.

[David Tucker]

That may be but a lot of limitations are forced limitations. I won't touch multitasking since I don't really know how WP7 will implement it but I feel you do need true multitasking since there are some applications that simply require to be running in the background. Android manages it.

But no copy/paste? That's unbelievable. Also, Android has the market but also allows you to install applications on your own. That type of thing helps the end user and the developer.

Yes, you can build complexity but there are things that the OS just needed from the start. Microsoft seems like its launching a competitor to the original iPhone and not to the current iPhone, or more importantly, Android.

Microsoft made this same mistake with the Zune. The Zune has even always been a technically superior product but not differentiated enough or marketed well enough to ever gain much traction in the market.

[mv]

Something to think about: it's easier to start with something simple and add layers of functionality on top (and control the complexity) of it than it is to start with something complex and try to simplify it. That's really at the root of the whole problem - Windows Mobile is a complex, hard to use product...and all of Microsoft's efforts at attempting to simplify it haven't worked out to sell. Windows Phone 7 is a re-start, and at the start, it will be lacking features we're used to having. But if Microsoft can add features to WP7 while keeping the complexity in check, they'll have something good.


We all hope so.

[Wodenborn]

Windows Phone 7 has managed multi-tasking, similar to iPhone OS4, with the addition of Hub management:

http://www.engadget.com/2010/03/17/windows-phone-7-series-multitasking-the-real-deal/

Apps have 3 ways to multitask:

Hub Integration: The four hubs shown were the Social hub, Media hub, and Xbox Live hub. Most active background processes will be handled by these hubs.


Social Hub: Messaging apps, email accounts, social networks from facebook to linked.in are all seamlessly viewed in the contacts folder. When you look up a person, you see all their recent activity in one place, from recent texts to the photos they've added to flicker. Push notifications will come from here as well, with the option to choose to allow push for each service. This prevents the need for a separate app for each service, and provides multi-taking for chat clients and all other text communications.

Media Hub: all the music (and presumably video) software you download will be accessed through the phone's media player, as a playlist. Downloading Last.fm or Pandora, for example, put all of those playlists into your Music Hub. This allows you to access all your audio services and run them in the background without having to launch and manage multiple apps.

Xbox Live Hub: all the games will be integrated into the Xbox Live service. You can get push notifications when your friends come online and, with turn based games, you can get push notifications when it's your turn. Games can easily be developed for multiple platforms with cloud-based save states, allowing you to start a game on Xbox, play it on your phone in transit to work, and finish it on your computer when your boss isn't looking.

Office Hub: has a full suite of mobile office tools, as well as cloud-based syncing with documents on all other devices, and live, cooperative editing with other users. Additionally, ALL productivity software, like note takers, will be integrated into this hub, and will likely feature similar syncing capabilities.


2) Suspended Apps

If you switch away from an App while it's still running, it freezes in place until you switch back, at which point it resumes right where you left off.

If you run several apps, one at a time, the phone will kill the first opened app in order to save resources (and battery).

3) First Party Apps

First party apps, like Internet Explorer, will run active in the background. So far this is the only multi-task capable apps not tied to a Hub, but if Microsoft finds exceptions (like, maybe, Opera's browser) they may start allowing some third parties in background.

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Personally, I'm not worried about active multi-tasking, because very few apps I can think of would not fall into one of those four hubs: Social, Media, Games, and Office. Your ability to specify push notifications for each service or program within the hub will be the real ace in the hole, and the chance for the user to tweak the experience to provide exactly what the info need.

Since the Social Hub has push, all messaging apps have multi-tasking by default. Since the Music Hub runs in the background, all music services are multi-tasked by default. Since the Office Hub, yada, yada. Honestly, I can't think of an instance where I would need multitasking that couldn't be handled with these options.


Cut and Paste is a much bigger issue. Honestly, they need to give you some way to highlight words. It's available in Office, but forcing you to open an email as an Office doc is a little cumbersome, and is no help for web pages. Microsoft is downplaying it right now because they want to emphasize Hot Linking, which allows you to press any phone number and call it in one touch, any address and see it in Bing Maps in one touch, any web address and go there, etc. That would cut my Cut and Pasting in half, but that's still a big chunk of utility I'm sacrificing.

Honestly, if C&P is a deal breaker, wait a year. I'm sure they'll have a solution by then, and the hardware will be light years ahead to boot.

[Jason Dunn]

Windows Phone 7 has managed multi-tasking, similar to iPhone OS4, with the addition of Hub management...

Superb first post! And I agree completely - for my own needs, the multi-tasking on Windows 7 looks like it will be sufficient. Hard to say for sure until I get a device in my hands, but I'm not too concerned. GPS seems to be one of the key scenarios that requires multi-tasking, but I never, ever use my phone for turn by turn driving directions, so I'm not too concerned about that.